Google doodle marks US astronaut Sally Ride`s 64 birth anniversary

Google has marked late American astronaut Sally Ride's 64th birthday with its animated doodle.

Ride, who was born in Los Angeles in 1951, had joined NASA in 1978 and had become the first American woman to have gone to space at the age of 32, and flew twice on the space shuttle Challenger.

She was also the youngest American astronaut to travel to space, and remains so till date.

Ride, who was the first known LGBT astronaut, died in 2012 at the age of 61, seventeen months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.